


It Is A Choice

by Bette



Category: English and Scottish Popular Ballads - Francis James Child
Genre: Crossdressing, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 10:12:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8886958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bette/pseuds/Bette
Summary: Elise marks her life by choices made.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rainflorist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainflorist/gifts).



_My father was as brave a lord_  
As ever Europe did afford;  
My mother was a lady bright,  
My husband was a valiant knight.

Her father raises her to be his heir. The only child, her mother dead in childbirth, what other choice does the good Lord William have but to teach her the things he knows as well as breathing? She is raised to hunt, to read, to handle a rapier as well as any man. 

Elise remembers that the ground is cold and the large stone her eight year old body is pressed against is colder. She remembers her father on his knees behind her, a steadying hand on her small shoulder as she takes aim at the largest buck she has ever seen. 

_The most important lesson,_ he whispers, his voice gravel against the fragile shell of her ear, _is to see the path you need to get what you want, and make the choice to take it._

Taking the shot that day is a choice rewarded with the true shot of her arrow leaving blood blooming in a red nimbus around the crumpling buck. Rewarded with a winter of good salted meat, and knowing that she has cared for herself. 

From that moment, Elise marks her life by choices made. 

When her father dies, her first husband, her first love, is a choice. Thomas has a strong jaw and a stronger hand, but knows how to treat her gently. For the first time in her life she sees the benefit to being the lady fair for the bold knight brave enough to tame her. 

He brings her flowers, and she learns music and cooking from Clara, her serving maid with night black hair and fair skin and lips as deep a red as the blood that Elise remembers spilling out in the snow. One year after they are married, Thomas brings Clara to their bed. When Elise touches her for the first time, she sees the path that she needs to get her to where she wants to be. Clara is a choice. 

A month later, Thomas is slain and no matter how Clara tries to comfort her, Elise can barely manage to look at her through the pain. The rest of the servants fly from their home as if possessed, but Clara lingers as long as she can. In the end, Elise makes another choice and sends her away. 

After that, each new choice hurts less and less. 

Taking on her father's name.

Taking up Thomas' rapier. 

Cutting her hair.

Leaving the home they had shared. 

She remembers that day in the forest with her father again as she rides away for the last time. She remembers the cold of the stone against her cheek, the crunch of her father's boots in the snow and the true shot of the arrow as it flew from her bow. She wants to believe in that moment that her heart is as cold as the stone. 

When the ice melts, picking up the lute is a choice too. 

She knows from the moment she meets Henry that he is a good king. By all accounts he is strong but kind, powerful but fair. He teases her but is never cruel. In everything, he is most impressive in the way that he is intense in his resolve. When he sees the path to take him where he wants to go, he makes the choices he needs to make. He reminds her of her father, and of Thomas, and when he takes her into his confidences he reminds her of Clara, too. 

In the cold of his bedchamber she stokes the fire, and Henry's hand covers her slim shoulder. 

_William_ , he says, _have ever I told you of my father?_

Those are the moments that make her love him. Those quiet moments where he asks her to stay after the bed has been turned down. Where his sleep-thick voices shares things in the dim light of the fire that she knows he can never confide outside of this room. Those moments where she knows that he trusts his Sweet William more than any other of his men. 

Those are the moments that make her choice for her. 

One night as he talks, her hand slips beneath the heavy blankets to find him. His breath catches hard in surprise, and in the glow of the fire she watches that surprise turn to hunger as she strokes him. 

It happens again the next night, and the next, and the night after. She thinks that it will become a habit, another chore to add to the list after stroking the fire and turning down his bed. She could almost survive that, she thinks, letting this settle into something that she can control. Instead the connection seems as if it grows stronger each time she touches him, and she finds herself wishing that he would reach for her, and that she could erase the growing worry she sees settling in behind his kind, blue eyes every time he looks at her after the moments between them are ended. 

He does not reach for her, Instead, when he spills himself over her fingers his voice, gruff and needy, whispers _William_ and every time a piece of her heart that she had thought was too scarred already to beat for someone new tears open a bit more. 

On the day that fate changes, on the day that she makes the choice to tell the truth, Henry kills a buck. This would never be surprising, except that for the first time the King leaves the trophy cold on the ground as he is led away. When Henry returns from hunting he comes home with the story of being led deeper into the trees by a white hind, and hearing the sad lament of a raven perched on a lone tree in the midst of a wide clearing. He undresses her slowly, putting away the clothing of his Thomas, his serving man, and meeting Elise, finally, in the ways that she has wanted as a woman from the moment she first came into his bedchamber. 

She knows nothing of this when she picks up the lute and plays for the man that Henry leaves behind. Picking up the lute is a choice she makes because she knows that she cannot survive losing another piece of herself. 

  
_My father was as brave a lord_  
As ever Europe did afford;  
My mother was a lady bright,  
My husband was a valiant knight.

_‘And I myself a lady gay,_  
Bedecked with gorgeous rich array;  
The bravest lady in the land  
Had not more pleasures to command.

__  



End file.
